


Violence Hums Beneath My Skin (I Think There's a Fault In My Code)

by LostandLonelyBirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Series: Death Is Not An Illusion [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman Incorporated (Comics), Forever Evil (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: AU of Agent Grayson bs, AU of Death in the Family, AU of How Could You?, AU of Night of the Owls, Although if I had to give him a name it would be Deathwing, Angry Dick Grayson, Angst, Arson, Brutal Murder, Character Death, Dark Dick Grayson, Gasoline by Halsey, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied Joker!Dick, Insanity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Morally Grey Dick Grayson, Murder, Pyromania, Song Lyrics, don't blame me for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 08:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/LostandLonelyBirds
Summary: Nightwing doesn’t kill,Dick Grayson does.





	Violence Hums Beneath My Skin (I Think There's a Fault In My Code)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RichardGraysonPercyJackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RichardGraysonPercyJackson/gifts).
  * Inspired by [He's Changed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263870) by [RichardGraysonPercyJackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RichardGraysonPercyJackson/pseuds/RichardGraysonPercyJackson). 

> I 100% blame RichardGraysonPercyJackson for this, because they wrote this AMAZING piece (link here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263870) inspired by How Could You? (link here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143223) and I couldn't NOT write an AU of the original scene, so here you go. This is my contribution to the Dark Dick Grayson lovers, and my take on if Dick killed while at Spyral.

_Nightwing _doesn’t kill,

_Dick Grayson _does.

It’s an important distinction,

To him if no one else.

** _Are you insane like me? Been in pain like me?_ **

First time was in passivity, in standing aside as a bullet found its mark. He’d been sore and tired and numb, confusion and frustration warring in his head. Blockbuster’s constant push and pull, leveling his apartment, murdering everyone close to him, (_Bright, intelligent eyes filled with hatred, “I’ll make sure you can’t save **any of **them, I’ll make sure you relive, over and over, your failure to save my mother.”_) had twisted something in him, fractured it.

Maybe broke it.

When Tarantula had told him to stand aside, he’d done it without question, watching as Tarantula shot Blockbuster in the head.

He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he could have stopped her.

_His_ death and her fall had been his fault, but Blockbuster’s death solved more problems than he liked to admit.

** _Bought a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne like me? Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me?_ **

Second time was an accident, anger and rage overtaking his senses.

Red haze and rage had overtaken his vision, Robin’s torn suit too closely matching the one in a glass case back at the cave (_a good soldier_), so he’d snapped.

By the time his vision cleared, the Joker was dead, lips spread in a bloody grin (_satisfied, because he’d won, he’d pushed Dick again and again because “his name was Jason, right?”, laughing even as blood leaked from his mouth, spilling onto the pale landscape of his skin_).

Of course, Batman _had _brought the Joker back to life, so he wasn’t sure if he should count it.

He counted it anyways, because why not.

He _wasn’t _a good soldier, never had been.

** _Would you use your water bill to dry the stain like me? Are you high enough without the Mary Jane like me?_ **

Third time was curiosity, burning and dangerous. He wanted to see if Talons were _truly _immortal, if they could indeed survive anything. His great-great something William Cobb liked to talk _at _Dick, threatening the family he’d built after his parents had fallen, detailing what he was going to do to Dick once the Court overtook Gotham, what the _Gray Son _would do.

“Did my mother know?” he’d asked Cobb one day, overlooking Gotham’s darkening sky.

“Did she _know_? She _was _Talon, she only got out when John married her to produce a _new _Talon of my bloodline.”

Cobb’s voice was smug for the last time.

He’d never told Batman about the visits, and Cobb had never informed the Court.

Two could keep a secret if one of them was dead, and ashes couldn’t talk.

** _Do you tear yourself apart to entertain like me? Do the people whisper ‘bout you on the train like me?_ **

Fourth time was hot and fiery, resembling his second kill in all but end result.

He’d beaten the Heretic to a bloody pulp, the blood of his brother’s corpse and the blood of a clone coating his suit. When Heretic had leaned against a cement wall, clutching his broken arm and looking at Dick with fear in his child-like eyes, he’d covered Damian’s head with his cape and pulled the spear out of his chest.

The fear in the clone’s eyes had delighted him, filling him with a toxic satisfaction more addictive than the numb burn of whiskey at night. He drove the spear through the clone’s heart, putting enough force behind it to crack the wall behind Heretic. As the clone had cried out in pain, tears streaming down its cheeks, Dick struck a match and lit the Heretic’s cloth uniform on fire.

He hadn’t fought Batman when he collected Damian’s corpse.

Damian didn’t need to see what his hero had become.

_You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain._

** _Saying that you shouldn’t waste your pretty face like me?_ **

** _And all the people say…_ **

His fifth time, the time that truly defined him, was cold and calculated, premeditated and addicting.

Joker had caused too many problems- too much pain (_a circus tent burning, Raya and his second family smiling impossibly wide as they tried to kill him_), too much death (_“His name way Jason, right?”_), and too much chaos (_Dick held a sobbing mother as her baby’s head rolled towards her, still toothless and small. Something that small shouldn’t have that much blood_).

Joker was a problem, so Dick made himself the solution.

One gunshot to the heart, made to look like a cop did it (_and technically, a cop did._)

The Joker had enough time to look down, shocked, frown replacing his too-wide grin.

“That’s not funny,” He’d said, falling to the ground. “That’s not funny at all.”

Bullock took credit because Dick told him to, and the Joker didn’t get the last laugh.

Bruce never found out, but sometimes the way Jason looked at him made him wonder if he did.

** _You can't wake up, this is not a dream You're part of a machine, you are not a human being_ **

Every kill was personal, intimate.

He left part of himself at every crime scene, cutting out bits and pieces of his soul and _flesh _to be what was needed. Every scar linked to a kill, arms decorated with little cuts and markings to commemorate.

** _With your face all made up, living on a screen Low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline_ **

He didn’t have a name anymore, not when he went out.

Nightwing was a mantle, a hero, and Dick wasn’t a hero anymore, not in the ways that counted.

He liked killing, liked it in ways Jason _didn’t dare _to say, in ways that were twisted and sadistic.

** _I think there's a flaw in my code These voices won't leave me alone _ **

** _Well my heart is gold and my hands are cold_ **

He was a psychopath, he had to be.

He was dangerous and no one, _no one_, had a clue.

Batman attribute his kills to other people, not knowing the monster behind the smile.

** _Are you deranged like me? Are you strange like me?_ **

He killed in Spyral, every mission, every _day_.

It was a monster humming beneath his skin, caged and leashed, demanding blood like the body demands food.

He only felt alive when he killed with his bare hands, personally.

He liked feeling the life drain from whatever scum Helena gave him.

** _Lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me? Do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me? Pointing fingers 'cause you'll never take the blame like me?_ **

When the shards cut into his feet, digging in sharply as he clutches the newspaper, he feels nothing. When Helena enters his room, silent, nervous, and sees the paper and picture clutched tightly in his hands, he sees her eyes widen.

He sees her _fear_, can practically _taste it. _

** _And all the people say You can't wake up, this is not a dream_ **

Dick feels the anger burn its way through his veins, the realization of what Bruce’s radio silence had actually meant, of what Helena’s constant tension these last couple weeks had been about, slams into him with all the force of a drugged-up Bane.

He narrows his eyes at her, ice cold and burning.

“You knew.” 

She knows better than to deny it, having seen firsthand what he’ll do to someone who _lies _to him.

She shuts the door, not knowing what a _mistake _that is, not knowing that all Dick can see right now is her blood, spilling across the room he’s made his.

He wants to stain his web of lies red, _a lie for a lie makes the world go blind, death is much more fitting_.

** _You're part of a machine, you are not a human being With your face all made up, living on a screen_ **

He can’t hear her voice, her _lies_, over the pounding, over the sound of blood rushing to his head.

He rubs his scars reverently, finger tracing the lines of death he’d carved out (_one for them and one for him_).

“_Grayson!_”

She tries for a reproaching tone but falls flat.

He wonders if her heart is pounding, like a little mouse.

He wonders if she knows what he’s thinking, what the clenching and unclenching of his fingers means.

He drops the newspaper and turns towards her.

** _Low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline_ **

“Grayson-"

Her words are cut off by his hand, tight around her throat.

“Who the _fuck _do you think you are?” he demands, knowing she can’t answer.

She struggles, choking slightly, before he drops her, pulling a knife from her thigh sheath.

She meets his eyes, hand gently holding her neck, fear and betrayal coloring her brown eyes.

She looks at the knife, but doesn’t beg for her life.

Helena knows what he can do, who he _is_.

She may not be a villain, but she sure as hell isn’t a hero.

Dick slits her throat without hesitation or guilt.

_ **I think there's a flaw in my code, these voices won't leave me alone** _

He hunts down every Spyral operative and base, burning and killing in equal measure.

He doesn’t go to Gotham immediately, even after Midnighter drags him away from the last building, the last remnants of Spyral.

No matter how hard he scrubs at his skin, the blood doesn’t leave.

He can _feel it taste it_.

Like a scar, like _dirt_.

When he _does _return, even Damian isn’t distraction enough for what’s inside of him, the flaw in his code, the break in his morals.

It’s hard to hide it,

The murder in his eyes,

The trophies in his closet,

The blood on his hands,

The scars on his arms,

But Bruce is oblivious.

Bruce doesn’t see until others do, until others force him to.

Bruce doesn’t see until he wraps his hands around the Black Mask’s gurgling throat, cutting off the villainous monologue sure to bore him to death.

Bruce doesn’t see until he looks in Dick’s eyes and _has _to see the desire and blood lust in it.

“Dick, don’t-“

Sionis’s dead body hits the ground before Bruce can finish, and Dick only laughs, a familiar, _haunting_, sound.

He's pale, so pale,

and his lips are cracked, bleeding, _red_.

“Why the long face, _Batsy_?”

** _Well my heart is <strike>gold</strike> and my hands are cold_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Bird Who Laughs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046934) by [Forestfire34720](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestfire34720/pseuds/Forestfire34720)


End file.
